Company officially crosses the line of grief for the Queen with bizarre bank holiday decision

Center Parcs has sparked outrage after announcing it will close on the day of the Queen’s funeral with paying guests being asked to vacate their sites.

The funeral for the 96-year-old monarch will take place on Monday 19 September at Westminster Abbey, with the day being announced as a bank holiday.

Following news of the funeral, Center Parcs, which operates holiday villages across the UK, has announced all of its UK sites will be closed for 24 hours from 10 am on Monday 19 September.

In a tweet, the company said: “Following the announcement of the date of the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II, we have made the decision to close all our UK villages on Monday 19 September at 10am as a mark of respect and to allow as many of our colleagues as possible to be part of this historic moment.”

The news means guests who have booked a holiday there will have to find alternative arrangements for one night, or be forced to cut their holidays short.

Sign up to our new free Indy100 weekly newsletter

Those due to begin their holiday on Monday are being offered to opportunity to start their stay a day later, but the decision to close has met widely with backlash.

One person wrote: “Centre Parks booting out guests mid holiday as a 'mark of respect' is absolutely the maddest thing I've heard.”

Someone else asked: “I mean, seriously - what does this achieve?!”

Another said: “What a truly stupid little island.”

One Twitter user suggested: “Someone at Center Parcs has made a CHOICE that it’s cheaper to remove a day from customer’s holidays & deal with the Twitter Storm & PR, rather than pay their staff extra for working a Bank Holiday.

“I am not sure it was the right choice.”

“It’s what she [The Queen] would of wanted,” one Twitter user joked.

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.